ThingsAmongMany

Chinese artist Chen Wenling critiques the global financial crisis in What You See Might Not Be Real, on display at a Beijing gallery. The bull is said to represent Wall Street, while the man pinned to the wall represents jailed financier Bernard Madoff.

via BBC & @meat99

As of lately I’ve been overly obsessed with talk radio.  Mostly NPR, but any talk will do. Today while driving into the city my car signal lost my beloved NPR so i flipped to WFUM to see what they were up to.  And it was the most brilliant thing.

Remember the Inauguration last week? Remember the poem that followed Obama’s speech?

It was written and read by Elizabeth Alexander.  If you need to refresh your memory, watch it here.

WFUM held an hour long segment of Inaugural Poem Remixes.  There are 51 total.

Here are some of my favorites. Right click to download.

Godxiliary “2 Mikrosophst and Cassettegirl Make Love”

James Urbaniak “What If”

I Am A Robot “Poem”

Jonathan Wall “Some Someone Someone Someone Something Somewhere”

I’m a vampire fan. As my friend Will pointed out the other day, as well as my hairdresser Lisa, ‘not everyone is a vampire fan. Some people prefer Zombies.’

And while I’m always down for a good Zombie flick (28 Days Later was not zombies by the way — it was humans infected with a mutated strain of the RAGE virus.. or something.. and it was a damn good movie), I will have to say that I love vampire movies. I love vampire TV shows even more.

When Buffy and Angel finally consummated their relationship in the TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Angel experienced his moment of pure happiness, thus breaking the curse plummeting him into the vortex of Hell, i cried.  I cried hard. Embarrassingly hard.

When they split the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer into one hour of Buffy followed by an hour of Angel, I reveled in the now 2 hours I could waste melting into prime-time WB programming.  When the network featured crossover events, I would isolate myself in front of the glowing television set in pure uninterrupted bliss.

Then the writers changed. The show started to suck and the WB became the CW.

And now many years later Twilight emerged. I picked up the book many times between 2006 and 2008. I look at the cover, read the dust jacket, put it down.

Then a few weeks ago at a Dinner Party a bunch of my female friends were discussing their love for the book. How “hot” it was. How they would stay up late reading it. I dismissed their comments (one of the girls at the party also said how she doesn’t read  book that doesn’t have a pink cover). Seriously.

And then my curiosity got the best of me. Late at night, unable to sleep I went on my favorite pirated movie website, and there it was. Twilight the newly released movie. Filmed with a handheld camera, it all its glory.

Being even more untrue to my “read the book, then watch the movie” policy, i clicked play.

I figured this crap movie would put me to sleep in seconds.

And I stayed away for the entire 90ish minutes.

The next day I found myself in a trance at Barnes and Nobles buying not only the first book but second book “New Moon”, and devouring both of them in days.

However for all its grasp on me Twilight it is NOT Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nor is it Harry Potter — I don’t even want to humor the comparison.

Here to me, is how the books succeeds and fails:

First, let me start off by saying. Yes. I liked Twilight. I thoroughly enjoyed Twilight. I enjoyed it like I enjoy reading US Weekly in the bathroom (sorry for the graphic detail). Quick, entertaining, done.

Secondly, for people who claim this is a revolutionary new look at vampires (the whole being able to walk in the day light and not prey on people) just look at Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire — didn’t Brad Pitt only eat animals?  And Blade, he walked around in sunlight. Regardless, its a nice twist — the diamond glittery skin. The lack of fangs. And the inclusion of their greatest enemy, Werewolves. Nice.

Third, as for the INTENSE love story. Ehh. It’s intense because the author, Stephanie Meyer is constantly reminding us. In reality Bella walked through the school parking lot, saw a hot boy that everyone else thought was hot too. The boy, Edward couldn’t read her mind (like he could with everyone else) so he couldn’t hear her mentally drooling over him. Then they make eyes a few more times. And BAM - WHAT DO YOU KNOW, they are assigned to be lab partners and fall in love. Not complex. I mean yeah, her blood, so sweet, so hard to resist. But please. Its not love. Its pure infatuation. They never have fun. They never giggle together. He stares at her while she sleeps, always worried she is going to break. Honestly, Bella seems really boring. She wallows in her misery. I bet she shops at Hot Topic, if they have one in Forks, WA.

Some parents seem to think the book preaches abstinence. Really? This is hilarious since Edward is also saying to her, he will only end Bella’s human life if she marries him.  Shouldn’t it worry the same people who like the abstinence subtext that the book is fusing marriage with death?

Oddly enough even Angel and Buffy had an abstinence subtext.  They couldn’t have sex because if they did Angel would go to the vortex of hell. HELL people. Never to return and live a life of suffering and torture. That’s some mighty stuff.

But for everything I say that’s negative I keep coming back to the fact, that even now, as I’m almost finishing book three, I know I will go and get book four. Why? Its a good story. Its not a work of art. But its a damn good story.

And while I say give me Buffy & Angel’s romance any day over Bella & Edward’s, unfortunately for now, Buffy doesn’t have a movie out, nor a book, or a tv show.  So for those out there that despise Twilight maybe something good will come of this Twilight series after all.  Buffy movie?

(E-mail Josh Whedon and let him know you want it.)

NY-based designer Jeff Domke has just released yet another Obama-related design piece: Obamabats. A humorous adaptation of the popular “dingbats” font, Obamabats is a collection of 24 vector-ready Obama-esque images and design elements ready to be adapted for your next presidential project.

The download is free from Jeff’s site. Make sure to show us - and Jeff - what you use them for!

With the upcoming election mere days away – amidst a financial crisis that reminds many of the Great Depression – voices are getting louder and tensions are mounting nationwide. Politics is one of those topics that’s always quick to polarize opinions and bring the masses to their feet, and this year is no exception. In fact - and perhaps I’m simply paying closer attention or experiencing yet another aspect of living in NYC – I don’t recall ever experiencing an election as full of emotion and expectation as this November promises to be.

With emotion and a desire for change in our country fueling the fire, the crew here at POKE, along with our buddies at Mother, has just launched our newest project, SpellingChange.com. Picking up where Obama’s own Artists for Obama effort leaves off, Spelling Change posed a simple challenge to artists and designers around the world: demonstrate your support for Obama by reinterpreting one letter of the alphabet based on what Obama’s candidacy means to you. Those letters were then printed on t-shirts and photographed on Obama supporters.

The project doesn’t end there, though. There’s an open call for entries allowing anyone to submit their own letter design to SpellingChange.com. Visitors can use the collection of letters on the site to spell out their own personal statement of change and share that statement with the world, either digitally or on tees, bumper stickers, posters, and postcards.

Visit SpellingChange.com to create your own statement and take a step toward spreading change!